


A Dog Comes Home

by cobbleles



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Animal Death, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Bodily Fluids, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Character Death, Death, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Mild Sexual Content, Nudity, One Shot, POV Choi Yeonjun, Survival, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-22 00:54:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30030537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobbleles/pseuds/cobbleles
Summary: "What choice do we have?"
Relationships: Choi Soobin/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	A Dog Comes Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hello please read the tags. One of the character throws up in one scene but it's not super detailed, though I know it can still be a trigger so I thought I would mention it. I also made a [ playlist ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1B8S4Gzwad3xKupAQSQDtC?si=RBh3CQKuSZGP0rhfycDfZA%20rel=) if you like to listen to music whilst reading. Ok Have fun!!!!!!!

“Don’t look at me.”

“I’m not.”

“Can’t you… move… a little…”

“Nope.”

Yeonjun is standing about a meter, maybe a meter and a half away from a crouching Soobin, his pants down to his ankles, long grass tickling his ass. “This is humiliating.”

“Please,” Yeonjun rolls his eyes, “it’s a very natural thing to do.”

“And? I still don’t want you to hear it.”

“And you think I didn’t, in that shithole apartment back in Seoul? Hell, I could hear the upstairs neighbors sneeze.” 

Yeonjun can hear Soobin’s annoyed sigh, his shoes slipping in the mud, a branch poking his back. Yeonjun crosses his arms. “I know you understand I can’t just leave you alone, can I, Soobin-ah? When you’re all bent down, in no state to fight?” He says it like a joke to keep it lighthearted but he knows that Soobin knows that being alone in this world is the worst possible outcome even in this sticky situation. 

Soobin groans. His stomach growls.

“Ugh. Whatever, pervert.”

  
  
A Dog Comes Home

Another night out. It’ll be the ninth in a row. “I’m glad it’s not winter, at least.”  
“We’d freeze to death out here.”

10th, maybe the 11th. “I’m glad we were together.” Millions of phones going off at once, an alert on each lock screen; a photo of Soobin under on Yeonjun’s. A nation-wide broadcast, in different languages world-wide, on each open television; on display in stores, blurring the hours in train stations, at home. The same images. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I was alone.” Walking out of the bedroom in his grey sweatpants with his face all puffy still, and his hair standing on his head in every direction, and on his arms, and maybe his legs. He sat next to Yeonjun on the couch in their tiny living room in their tiny apartment they could barely afford as it is. Soobin glared at the TV, his eyes open so wide Yeonjun thought they might fall out of their socket, tearing and red; he closed them for him like you would a dead body. “I would’ve died.”

Yeonjun lays down a blanket on the ground beneath a tree, its leaves blocking out the last light before nightfall, its roots beneath the earth. Soobin lays down.

“And what do you think would’ve happened to me?” 

_We have to leave now._ A bag each, only the essentials; a change of clothes, a kitchen knife, a flashlight, a lighter, band-aids and alcohol and bandages, a needle, thread, _in case._ Water.

Food, of which there isn’t any left. They’ve tried to hunt but wild animals are fast, as scared as they are.

Soobin stood by the window. Yeonjun pulled him back into the bedroom. He undressed him, his white briefs stained a dark yellow on the crotch, damp. He washed him up with a wet cloth. _Leg up. The other one._ A new pair of sweatpants on, long socks. _Arms._ A black shirt. He brushed his hair and his teeth, cupped his cheeks, brought their foreheads together and in time, noses. _You’re ok. You’re ok._

“You’d be just fine, Junnie.”

Here’s a part Soobin gets wrong: Yeonjun wasn’t only saying it to him but to himself as well.

“Maybe you’re right.”

He lays down next to Soobin after tying ropes around the trunk of four trees, creating a perimeter around them; if one comes near they’ll trip and fall and wake them.

Soobin puts his head on his chest. He draws patterns on Yeonjun’s torso with the tip of his finger, draws out a hitched breath when he passes by a nipple. His shirt is thin, dirty and old; Soobin crawls underneath it. His tongue finds each drop of sweat, licks him clean like his tongue was rugged and Yeonjun had fur more than just peach fuzz and the bush at the hem of his underwear. 

Here’s a part Soobin gets right: his mouth is a vacuum. He is 24. He takes four fingers in it at the same time like there is no time. There are footsteps in the forest. If it was fall leaves would crinkle. If it was winter snow would fall. 

  
  


There’s a house in the woods. There’s always a house somewhere. A house made of walls, a house of flesh like arms, logs stacked in the shape of a cube, an entrance like a mouth; open windows like eyes; a backdoor like

Soobin knocks on the front door and waits for an answer that never comes. Yeonjun pushes the door open, unlocked.

“Hello?”

Soobin’s voice ricochets on the walls. Yeonjun shushes him. Soobin apologizes in silence, however he can soon speak freely; the house is indeed empty. Only the wood creaks beneath their feet. Only one fits in the bathroom; two if one sits in the bathtub and the bathtub’s clean like no one’s ever used it. A decoration like this dog trinket on the stand beneath the wall-mounted television. It’s new. Yeonjun can see himself clearly in it. There’s no grease on the remote. He opens a door from the living room/kitchen, every other room connected to these two/one. Some boxes are stacked on a desk, clothes on the back of a rolling chair, a futon folded in half. Yeonjun opens a box.

Soobin calls from the kitchen. The cabinets need oiling. “There’s barely anything in here.” He says.

“The rest’s still packed. It’s all in boxes.”

“Anything useful there?”

“Not that I can see.” Books, games, frames with pictures in them. A man. A cat. “Nothing to eat anyway.”

“Hmm.” Hands come together on Yeonjun’s stomach, arms underneath his, a face buried in his hair; dark roots fading into a baby pink. “That’s a shame.” Soobin’s voice is low but soft. He leaves vaseline on Yeonjun’s skin, above his crewneck, beneath his ear, right on it; his earring probably like cutlery on his tongue. His tongue like a slug. 

A knock on the front door makes Yeonjun jump in Soobin’s arms and Soobin knocks down a box on the floor. Glass shatters. Yeonjun swears to a deity he doesn’t believe in.

A second knock comes like a thud like a body tumbling into something like something, and not someone.

A strategy naturally forms itself in Yeonjun’s brain. Soobin waits for instructions like a military dog. Yeonjun mimes a plan: Soobin is to open the door; Yeonjun is to wait and strike with a kitchen knife as soon as the undead tumbles in but the undead trips and falls face first onto the floor when Soobin opens the door, making Yeonjun laugh. Its body is so bloated it could’ve exploded on impact, but it didn’t, instead it flaps its arms like a turtle on its shell unable to turn around, and Yeonjun laughs. Soobin looks at him with eyes big and black. “You have to admit it's funny.” Soobin’s lips are a thin line. Yeonjun wipes his chin as if laughter dribbled from his lips. “I’ll get to it then.”

A puddle of blood forms underneath the undead now redead, though small, most of it lost the first time around. 

Soobin kicks its foot. Nothing happens. “Just checking. You never know.” He closes the door behind it, leaving it in. He stands there with his hands on his hips. “Welcome home buddy.”

“You think it’s… _his_ ? Think _he_ remembered?” 

“It’s like--we had a cat growing up. He was an interior cat, you see; my parents thought there’s enough stray ones as it is, that’s not gonna be ours too.” Its large hands. The way its clothes have ripped apart and only pieces of fabric hang on, a bare asscheek, “one night he got out. We looked everywhere in the house before heading out, on the street, under each car. We asked the neighbors. No one had seen it.” its skin on its back sucked in; “a day later the cat’s standing on the porch, meowing at the door, waiting for someone to hear him, to let him in.” mountains rise and fall and burst at the stomach. “I don’t know how he knew the way back home but he did. It’s like--being on autopilot. Your body knows something your brain doesn’t.” 

Its nostrils are wide, cut into one. Yeonjun hovers over it.

“Or he just followed your smell.”

Soobin shuts every window. He locks the door and pushes the stand under the TV against it, simultaneously pushing the body into the couch, crushing its neck. Soobin winces at the sound of bones shattering however he keeps on going, moving on to putting duct tape on the windows, only leaving a small opening to invite the light in. 

Yeonjun crouches beside the corpse. A bone has pierced the skin and a mouth has surfaced from underneath the couch to steal it. Olive green eyes sparkle in the daylight.

“Come here.” Yeonjun asks gently, rubbing his thumb against his remaining fingers, slowly approaching to extract it.

The cat is orange though its paws are all white. It’s still small.

Soobin lets out a cry when he sees it, a tear falls down his cheek when he holds it. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?” he asks the cat directly, petting its belly, curling his fingers in its fur. It meows. 

“Maybe there’s some food for it somewhere.”

Soobin shakes his head. “The bag’s empty, I checked. I’m desperate enough to eat it myself. I think I’d eat anything at this point.”  
Yeonjun opens the fridge. A draft of spoiled milk comes out, the smell of rotten eggs, thawed meat, browns that were once greens and mostly spilled beer. Yeonjun brings his shirt over his face.

He looks through cabinets Soobin hadn’t gone through yet, hitting his hip on a drawer left open. “Fuck” he mutters, uncovering the wound; a bit of blood comes through. Yeonjun wipes it off with a finger that he then sucks on. His flesh is bright and pink. His blood taste of cutlery. The corpse lays on the floor.

“What if…?” he walks around it. He kneels beside it. He feels an arm, a leg. The skin is disgusting but perhaps a layer underneath it,

“you can’t be serious.”

“You said anything.”

“I--yes. Exactly. Any _thing._ That is NOT a _thing._ ”

The cat is happy in Soobin’s hands, mindlessly accepting head scratches. 

“It’s not human either anymore.”

Soobin’s looking at Yeonjun like he’s crazy. “You’re actually serious about this.” Yeonjun shrugs with his shoulders and his hands and his lips. The cat meows at Soobin repeatedly. Soobin shakes his head. “There’s no way this is safe.” 

“It has to bite us, right? Not the other way around.”

“Yeah but he’s still… infected.”

“Not if we cook it.”

They gather candles from a box and a pan and a grill. Soobin pulls the knife out of the corpse’s head and gives Yeonjun the knife. “I’m not doing it.”

“That’s fair.”

Soobin sits on the couch, a tint of red darker than blood, the cat in his lap, the only joyous one. He kisses its head, he covers its ears with his hands like it’ll make a difference when Yeonjun starts to cut into the flesh. “Thigh or forearm?”

“I don’t care.”

Yeonjun finds a good spot where the former man’s pants ripped. “Thigh it is then.” The skin peels off like a potato, or maybe more like a carrot; harder, bumpier, hairier, redder. 

Soobin gags. Yeonjun cuts a long fine line like a chicken tender. Satisfied, he brings it onto the pan, lights up the candles, pours in oil found in the pantry and the last of some herbs that have probably lost all of their flavor. Salt and pepper still on the counter. “Doesn’t smell too bad.” He flips it, cooks it until it’s no longer red in the middle. 

He cuts the meat into small parts with a clean knife, cubes like pellets. “Do you know where the cat’s bowls are?”

“The door to your left.”

Yeonjun pours water from his bottle into one bowl, the meat into the second. He calls the cat; pss-pss-pss-pss until it comes running. 

Soobin rests his head on the doorway, bending his head so he fits there, his legs tilted at a 45 degree angle, his elbow on the wooden frame. His arms are crossed over his chest. 

“Is there enough for us?” 

“I thought we could just… I was thinking, and you’re right, we don’t really know how it works, do we? The infection.” He pets the cat as it eats fast, chewing two pellets at once. “So maybe we let the cat eat, sleep, and if it’s still fine in the morning then we can feast, too.” 

“That’s awful.” 

“Yeah. Well, too late now anyway.” The bowl is almost empty. “Let me see if I can find a bag--or better; a cage for it, in case.”

Yeonjun is shaken awake. Soobin’s voice is repeating his name. The sun is burning through his eyelids through the tape. “What is it?” Yeonjun follows the movement Soobin points to other than his hand, something alive, s

oh. God. Its mouth is a maw. Its teeth grind the bars like a hacksaw. Its eyes don’t blink.

“I really--I swear I believed this wouldn’t happen.”

Soobin covers his eyes with his hands, his fingers lined up and beyond his head.

“You did this.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.” They’re sitting on the same futon yet Soobin seems so far away. Yeonjun reaches for his hand but Soobin slaps it away. “I thought I was doing something good for us, but now it’s… and we’ll have to s--”

“No.”

Its meow is like a pleading dog. Like a howling wolf. Like a grieving man.

“We can’t let it be like that.” 

Yeonjun is careful with his choice of words. 

“We?” 

It wasn’t his choice.

“You--you don’t have to do anything. I’ll take care of everything.” He gets up. Walks to the kitchen. “Just… wait. The bathroom is probably the most soundproof.”

“I’ll wait out--”

“Soobin-ah, please… Inside…”

“Fine.” 

He stands and walks in the opposite way. “You know you’re killing me, Yeonjun.” He enters the room and locks the door behind him. 

Yeonjun takes a knife. 

  
  


Another day out. “Shit.” Soobin swears; Yeonjun looks back. Soobin holds his hand up. “Split my nail.” They’re long. Yeonjun stops. “Wait.” Soobin stops.

“Here. Found it in one of the boxes.”

It’s a nail clipper. Soobin takes it. “Thanks.” He sits down in tall grass where anything could hide. He cuts his nails short on one hand without problem, but he can’t quite hold the instrument in his right hand where the nail horizontally split in the middle.

“Let me.”  
Yeonjun kneels in front of him. The sun shines on Soobin’s hand. 

“Alright.” 

He clips each nail until the nail is shorter than the skin on his fingertip, until all the dirt stuck underneath is gone, somewhere in the grass now, out of their sight. He leaves the finger that is hurt last. “Just… rip it off. Be done with it.”

Yeonjun nods. Soobin squints his eyes and grits his teeth and grunts like a wild animal.

“Done.”

Yeonjun puts a band-aid on it and makes sure none of the sticky parts grab onto the wound. He kisses it. A gentle peck. “Better?”

They sleep on the same blanket on the same ground beneath a tall tree whose roots are hidden underneath. 

Yeonjun installs the ropes around the trees at his throat. Soobin lets himself be wrapped like left-overs by Yeonjun. Arms around arms, hands on a stomach, a stomach so empty it growls throughout the night like a wolf on a full moon. 

It rains in the morning. Yeonjun undresses and lets the rain unsoil his body. Soobin undresses and lets the rain clean his body. They hang their clothes to dry when it stops.

They sleep in a train station. The power is still on. The water flows. 

Soobin washes his face and hair with hand soap from the dispensers in the women’s restroom. The ones in the men’s are empty, Yeonjun checked for himself, though the room itself isn’t; two men rest by the urinals if one can still call those men, bodies halfway eaten, rotten to their core, missing limbs and one a hole for a head, infested with bugs. Soobin says man the way he says a person the way he says people. Soobin asks if this were you wouldn’t you say it was still you, despite everything? If this was _me?_

He lets Yeonjun use the rest of the soap for himself instead of salvaging the rest for his body. He helps him wash his hair in the sink. He helps him cut his bangs with scissors found in the lobby. He duct tapes their blanket over the big window in the wagon they force open to sleep in. He seals the door back shut.

“Goodnight.”

He is laying down on the opposite bench. Yeonjun is looking at him from underneath; his face is almost unrecognisable in this lighting, the shadows it casts upon him, but there’s this glow in his eyes that Yeonjun can always point out. 

“I love you. I hope you know that.” 

Soobin smiles. Maybe. It’s hard to tell. He extends a hand. Yeonjun takes it. The band-aid is coming off and rubbing against his skin. The nail is still broken.

The glass is broken on the vending machine and the shelves are empty. There’s a map on the pillar beside it. Soobin draws a path. “We should cut through town. It’s risky but we need to find something to eat.” Yeonjun agrees. 

“That was a bad idea.”

A herd of the undead gathers around a grocery store. A herd gathers around a pharmacy. A herd gathers around a hotel. A herd gathers around

“we should rethink our plan.”

“To eat?”

Soobin breaks into an apartment building. Yeonjun helps him use the last remaining of the duct tape to cover the breach. They climb up to the highest apartment. Yeonjun flicks the lightswitch but the light stays off. The sun comes through the window in the kitchen, above the sink, in the bathroom at Soobin’s chin and Yeonjun’s forehead, in the shower, a clear glass door, a flat surface. Long brown hair entangled in a hairbrush on the counter, a toothbrush with split hair in a dirty cup.

The kitchen is mostly empty, as they are now. A nauseating smell comes from somewhere, ants gather around a piece of chocolate on the floor. Soobin steals it from them and eats it whole, his lips closed and curved, a peaceful grin on his face, a hopeful sigh in the air. He apologizes to Yeonjun for not letting him have a taste even if the piece was the size of a tooth.

Yeonjun opens the pantry. It’s all ingredients; flour, spices. A box of dry pasta they share. A can of soup they don’t even bother to heat up. A bag of rice Soobin swallows down, uncooked. He opens tea bags and eats the loose leaves. Yeonjun finds a half-empty box of matches in a drawer hidden underneath oven mitts. He takes wooden straws and steel chopsticks.

When Soobin leaves to empty a second apartment, Yeonjun follows him. The smell is stronger here. The walls are thin, the ceiling is made of cardboard. The sun is going down in the kitchen. A box of cereals sits on the table. It’s empty. Yeonjun opens the pantry.

It is not a pretty sight.

There is a body who is still human who is still a corpse in it. Her eyes are open. Her mouth is open. Her fists are closed. A fly lays on her chest. All of herself lay in between her legs, along her legs, covering her tights, out in the open underneath her dress. 

Soobin gags.

“She’s not infected.” is what Yeonjun says. 

Her corpse is as intact as one can be.

“No shit.” is what Soobin says.

Well.

“You know what I mean by that.”

Soobin looks at Yeonjun confused until he gets it. He walks away from the pantry, shaking his head. “No no no no no I am not hearing this again!” He walks in circles around the table. He bumps his toe against it. “Fuck--you f--you--what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. Soobin-ah--look at me. Look at me.” He doesn’t. “I’m doing this for us.”

“Oh. _Us_. Sure.”

“I am. You think we’ll make it past the month like this? The _year_? I know it’s… fucked. I know. I also know we need the strength to move forward. To get there.” Soobin’s stomach still howls. Yeonjun’s still wails. “What choice do we have? It’s this, or we end up like her, or worse.” Yeonjun opens the window in the kitchen long enough for the undead’s chant to reach this height. “So, Soobin-ah.” Soobin is looking at him. “What will it be?”

The meat is tender. Yeonjun is barely chewing it, swallowing it whole; too eager to feel full. Soobin is nibbling the end of a chopstick, kicking pieces around in his plate. Yeonjun is almost done with his meal when Soobin takes his first bite of it, chewing it once, mouth open, twice, before spitting it back out onto the ground. 

“I can’t do this.”

Yeonjun licks his lips dry. “Maybe it’ll go down easier with soy sauce. There was some in the pantry--I can get it for you.”  
“Don’t bother. It’s not about the taste. It’s about… what it is.”

“So pretend for a bit. Think of something else.” 

“Like what?”

“Anything you want.” Yeonjun takes his last piece. “I’m thinking of breakfast, when we get to your parents’ place.” He stuffs it in his mouth. “Bulgogi, galbi, your mom’s kimchi, those fried zucchinis she makes, and that cucumber salad, maybe some store bought pickles and fried eggs on rice, and--doenjang jjigae. Some seafood.”

Soobin takes a new bite. He swallows it down. “You remember that shop, down the street from our highschool? The pastries there--God. Just thinking of it all makes me salivate. They sold those enormous cakes, remember? That’s where I got yours last year for your birthday. What was it again? Some sort of chocolate mousse or whatever. They sold the best mint chocolate ice cream there as well.”  
“There’s probably a tube of toothpaste still in the toilet, if you truly miss the taste.”  
“Good idea.” Yeonjun chuckles. Soobin finishes his plate. Yeonjun picks up the piece he spat out earlier on the floor. “No waste.” It’s wet. “That wasn’t too bad now, was it?”

Soobin throws up all evening. Hunched over the toilet seat, Yeonjun caressing his back, a hand under his shirt and a hand over his forehead pushing his hair back. 

“Get it all out, it’s fine. You’re fine.” 

His stomach feels hollow to the touch. His ribs poke out like they’re trying to break out. His skin is grey, or maybe that’s the lightning. The moon is in a crescent. Its soft glow peaks in and bounces on the white tiles. His face is pale. Hair sticks to Yeonjun’s moist palm; he brings a full strand with him when he pulls back. 

Soobin closes the toilet lid and sits on it. His elbows on his thighs, his hands under his chin, his back still hunched. 

Yeonjun rubs his calves. He holds Soobin’s face over his hands. His fingertips on his warm cheeks, red. He kisses his knees, bruised up from the cold floor. “Better?”  
“It feels like there’s nothing left in me yet something still wants to get out.”

“That’s just bile.”

“No, I don’t--I don’t know. I don’t mean it like that.”

“Have you seen _Alien_?”

“Shut up.”

“Got it. Not the time.”  
Soobin does laugh a little though. It makes Yeonjun feel warm inside. “Are you sleepy? It’s pretty late.” The clock on the wall outside the bathroom ticks. It announces one. 

“Mm-mm. I feel disgusting.”

Yeonjun pulls Soobin on his feet and Soobin puts all of his weight against him, each step they take like a puppet and its master. “You do smell pretty disgusting.” Yeonjun sits Soobin down and takes off his shirt, his pants long gone. He lowers him down and lays next to him. He kisses his nape. “You also taste like it.”

Soobin groans. “Thanks.” Yeonjun throws his arms around his waist, his arms surround him, his legs detain him. His foot smears dirt on his leg. He nibbles his neck, gently biting his skin, leaving a mark. 

  
  


“Is this poisonous?” Soobin is holding a mushroom that he picked from the tree trunk. Yeonjun shrugs. “I wish I’d spent less time watching dumb TV and more time actually learning things that could come in handy someday.”

“You couldn’t have possibly known this would happen.”

Soobin smells the mushroom. His nose rubs against the head that he detaches from its body. It's full of white hair. “Do you think I can eat it?”

A few undead float down the river like their bodies themselves are life jackets. Soobin is standing naked in it too, water up to his belly button, foam on his shoulders, washing himself with soap from the apartment. 

“TO YOUR RIGHT.” Yeonjun calls out. One is close to him. Soobin turns around. “YOUR OTHER RIGHT.” Soobin turns around. He pushes the body away, changing its course without stopping it. He looks back at Yeonjun and gives him a thumbs up and his mouth is shaped like a 3. He finishes washing up and walks back to the bank in slow-motion because the water pressure is strong. “You should go too.” He tells Yeonjun. “The water’s fresh. Just warm enough.”

Yeonjun would not call this warm. Maybe not cold either. Algae flirts with his feet and a fish bumps into his shin. Soobin is letting the sun dry him off on the bank. Its beam is hot and heavier than it has been on any other day so far this year. The 30th or the 31st.

Maybe the first of June.

“Do you think your mom’s ok?”

Yeonjun blows hot air out of his cheeks. His mouth pops. 

“Do you want the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Then, no.”

“What about my mom?”

“Yes.”

Maybe Yeonjun lies.

“The apocalypse won’t stop her, pfff. This is nothing compared to raising one Choi Soobin.”

Soobin laughs. It’s the kind of laugh Soobin would always have before, like he can’t breathe anymore. He looks at Yeonjun like he’s not angry anymore. Or resentful. “And my dad?”

“He’ll be rocking in his chair on the porch when we get there, coughing in between two drags of his cigarette, and he’ll tell us how we took our sweet, sweet time. And he won’t be angry. Or disappointed. But still he won’t hug you when you hug him. And he’ll say _your mother’s in the kitchen._ And he’ll be fine. And it’ll smell good. And you’ll be alright.”

The wind chime will ring. 

“Thanks, Junnie.”

No one will answer.

“Of course.”

The sky is a bright purple despite the day being deep into night. Many seconds pass before the next thunderbolt hits, enough that they don’t have to worry even though they’re lying beneath a tree, with its leaves acting like a holed umbrella, its root underneath the earth that is a river that is filling up to become an ocean.

“You know, I think I’m lucky to be here with you.”  
Soobin’s words are as loud as the thunderstorm. Yeonjun is wet from top to bottom. If his hair hadn’t already faded so much there’d be pink running down his face. His face is still red from the cold rain. Or the way all of Soobin’s clothes stick to him, like they don’t see each other naked every other day.  
“I don’t think I deserve you.” is what Yeonjun replies. It makes Soobin giggle like a child. He answers “that might be true, but I still love you.”  
Soobin starts a bonfire when the rain stops. He uses the last match. Yeonjun hangs their clothes to dry.

“Should we leave it?”

The blanket has caved into the ground. They aren’t exactly clean themselves, but they can easily clean up with a cloth. The blanket is submerged. “We’re about two hours from the river.”

“Which is not on the way.”

Soobin shakes his head.

“and it’ll take some time to dry it off then. At least another two hours.”

Soobin nods. “We can easily find something as good in town. It’s not like we’re sleeping outdoors tonight. I hope. Is it important?”

It was a gift from his mother. Hand-made. She gave it to him when he moved in with Soobin in college. They were still only friends back then. They had kissed once. 

“I guess not.”

Yeonjun finishes dressing up, pulling his shirt over his head, smoothing the fabric on his torso. His arms are red from sunburn, and so are Soobin’s. “Not anymore."

It is surprisingly quiet in town. Like nothing’s ever happened and nothing will ever happen, which is false. 

They move quietly too, speaking in hands. _There._ A back alley in between backyards. Soobin peaks over a fence at a house that looks like his childhood home. It’s empty like the rest. _Here._ A shed. The door is already pushed open. Soobin pushes it further. He makes sure no one is there before he speaks. “I’d love to have a place like this.” He’s spinning around, taking it all at once. The ceiling is high; the walls are painted green and the walls outside are painted green, too, like a man at war. Its body is vast. A working bench sits in its stomach. The sun pulsates through like fingers on a neck after a run. A ladder goes up to a second floor with only a bed on it the size of two full grown men. A round bed the size of a small child can be found next to the ladder. The bathroom is outside.

“What would you do in a place like this?”

Soobin stops to think. The corner of his lips turn slightly upwards when he thinks, and he pouts, and his eyes narrow down a little. Yeonjun thinks it’s cute. Soobin says he doesn’t know. He says “maybe I’d take up wood carving. There’s enough trees around.” 

“I’d go out early in the morning, just before dawn, with my axe on my shoulder and my red flannel tucked in my blue jeans and I’d chop one down. Maybe I’d make a table out of it. I’d make the legs first.” His hands are on Yeonjun’s hips. “And then the top.” His hands are underneath his shirt. “I’d carve something into it.” His lips are on his neck. “Maybe a heart.” His teeth are on his chest. “I would carve you something beautiful, a tree from a tree for your jewelry.” HIs hands are in his briefs. “Earrings in the shape of an animal.”

Yeonjun presses their body together, tighter, crushing Soobin’s hand, a hand on the back of his back, his palm flat in the natural curve of his back. He says

“we’ll eat a full meal.” Meat. Fruits. Nuts. “I’ll pick up mushrooms I’ve learned we can safely eat. I’ll fish for bass even though I don’t eat seafood, ‘cause I know you like it. I’ll make pasta by hand.” He goes up and down his length. “I’ll carve bowls to eat from and glasses to drink from and chopsticks to eat with and spoons to feed you from. I’ll carve vases for flowers when spring comes each year.” They’ve been together for two. “There’ll be a garden. It’ll start from this side, outside,” he points to the wall on his left with his free hand, “and it’ll go right to the other side passing by the back.” He stops in the middle to finish with his right hand, leaving Yeonjun’s underwear empty but wet. “We’ll grow an apple tree that’ll take at least five years to give us our first fruit.”

“That’s a long time for just a fruit.” Yeonjun says. “It’s a long time…”  
“Mm-mm.” He says

“we’ll have so much food we won’t even know what to do with it. Our stomachs will always be full. Too full even. We’ll gain all of our weight back, then more than that. I won’t be able to see my feet when I walk.

“You won’t be able to see your dick when you pee.”

“That, too. And you too.” He says

“we could stay here. It’s good--isn’t it?” They’re a town away from his parents’ house. “I’ll learn to hunt; you’ll have all the meat one could ever want. Small animals.” Yeonjun’s feet hurt from standing. “Big animals.” He steps on Soobin’s, pushing himself taller; as tall as him. “I’ll learn to be the foe. I’ll teach them to be the prey.”  
“How?”

Soobin kisses him on the lips. The kiss is quick, but nonetheless needy, delirious, hungry.

“I won’t be scared anymore.”

  
  


Soobin left a few minutes ago. 

Yeonjun is tucked under the covers in the bed on the second floor that is only a mattress despite it being hot. A candle is lit beside. The wax is melting fast. Yeonjun’s shadow shrinks on the wall. Yeonjun shrinks in the bed, holding his legs to his chest.

Soobin comes back in. The big door to the shed closes as soon as it opens and Soobin puts the barrier back up, or down, this plank of wood to keep it shut tight. 

Yeonjun sits on the bed. Soobin is resting against the door, panting. “Are you--” something jumps against the door. Yeonjun jumps.

“There’s a dog--”  
“Ok--”

“A big dog.” He breathes out. His eyes are open wide and his mouth is open wide and he sounds like he ran a marathon though he was 10 meters far. “It looked… it was…” he paces around, trying to catch his breath, searching for something, “tryin to… come in…” he picks up a metal bar. Long like an arm. Yeonjun has crawled from underneath the covers and is finishing dressing back up. Soobin’s shirt is on the floor. He takes it with him when he climbs down the ladder. The dog’s claws make this noise like nails against a chalkboard against the door. 

“I had my pants down… I wasn’t payin attention. I just… heard it. It sounded like… someone old, like huffling, like… I finished and looked back… and it looked at me… and its eyes, God its eyes--” he opens his eyes even wider, “and its mouth--” he opens his mouth in a zero, “and its teeth--” 

Yeonjun walks carefully. Soobin is standing and talking and he’s not moving and he’s got that metal bar in his hands and he’s ready, and there’s blood at his feet. 

“Soobin-ah. We’re inside; it’s not.” 

He walks towards the wall and knocks on it. The dog runs outside. “You hear this? The walls are sturdy, built to withstand storms.” The dog jumps on it outside. Yeonjun jumps and nervously brushes it off, laughing. “It can’t reach us. See? It can only try.” He reaches Soobin. His knuckles are white. Yeonjun wraps his hand around his hand. “Let me.” Soobin lets him. 

“I’m sorry…”  
“It’s ok--”

“I’m so sorry, Junnie. Oh, Junnie. I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry…”  
“Let’s get you back in bed, alright? You’re ok. It’ll tire itself out. Someone else will pass by.”

Yeonjun puts his arm around Soobin, the metal bar in his hands now. He watches their feet and the blood that follows Soobin, and how he limps, but doesn’t comment on it. He helps Soobin climb up the ladder. He tucks him in bed. He watches the white bedsheets change into a much darker color. He slips in too, rests his head on the same pillow, looks at Soobin who is already looking at him. His eyes are clear. 

“Junnie?”

“Yes?”

“My leg hurts.”  
“Does it?” 

“Mm-mm.”

Yeonjun slips his hand under the sheets. He kisses his palm before it. He kisses his thigh with it. “Better?”

“I don’t know.”

Yeonjun slips it back out and caresses his cheek. He places Soobin’s hair behind his ear only for it to fall back instantly. 

“Well sleep will make it better anyway. In the morning it’ll be better.”

“I don’t think so.”

Yeonjun kisses his forehead.

“Trust me.”

His skin is cold.

“Junnie?”

“Yes?”

“I think you should leave.”

“We will. In the morning. We’ll get you home.”

“I think you should leave now.”

“I can’t do that.”  
“Take the bar with you, and my bag; there’s a sweater in it if you get cold. And you can take the sheets.” Soobin pulls at the sheet until they come undone at the end. He pulls them off himself and Yeonjun, up into a ball that he shoves into Yeonjun’s arms. 

“Soobin--”

“You should take my knife.” 

He feels the ground around the mattress. The candle has run out. The moon is almost full but not quite. Its light deflects onto the blade. He finds the knife. He holds it in front of Yeonjun.

“I don’t need it. I’m not leaving.”

Soobin opens his mouth and shoves the blade into his gum, and he pushes up, and he pushes it down,

“what are you--”

he pulls a tooth out. “Take it.” and another. “And this.” and another. “And this one too.” and another. 

“Don’t do t--Hey--HEY!”

Yeonjun pries the knife out of Soobin’s hands, slashing his hand open in the process. He doesn’t even realize at first. It doesn’t hurt at first.

“I don’t wanna hurt you… Junnie Junnie Junnie _Junnie_.” Soobin is pleading. He is on top of Yeonjun. “Please…” Yeonjun is spreading blood in his hair. And on his face. And Soobin is kissing the wound. And he is licking off the blood. And it stings. “Go…” And he bites.

A sharp pain travels down Yeonjun’s arm. Soobin apologizes and continues. 

“Forgive me Junnie…” 

He whimpers and he snorts and he drools and it falls through Yeonjun’s fingers and onto his face, in his mouth, and Soobin growls like his stomach, and the blood from his teeth or lack of mixes with the blood from Yeonjun’s hand from the bite he took and chewed off and swallowed and the second that he took and chewed and swallowed and the third that he ate etc he has moved on to his arm.

“Soobin?”

His mouth is full.

“Soobinnie?”

He doesn’t answer, but he grunts like he knows the name is his.

“I love you, Choi Soobin.”

Yeonjun wiggles free from Soobin’s grip, only to pull the man, or what remains of the man, into a kiss. And he mumbles that he loves him against his lips. And he puts his tongue in his mouth only to taste his own flesh. And Soobin bites his tongue off. And Yeonjun screams so loud he thinks he might’ve torn his vocal cords, but it doesn’t matter now. 

The dog barks outside. Yeonjun tells Soobin that he loves him still, or at least he tries. It doesn’t come out right. He writes it in blood on his arm instead. 

And he kisses him. All of the open space on his body. 

And he lets him eat.

He is so hungry.

His hands aren’t hands anymore. His head falls to the left. A hole in his cheek leaves his teeth out in the open. 

When does a body stop being a body? When does a person stop being a person? 

Soobin is still his person.

Would Soobin think so? Does Soobin think? He does not respond to his name anymore. Or Yeonjun can’t pronounce it right. He apologizes. He forgets why. 

Soobin. Staying.

He would not have left.

“I van’t… alone…”

“Soov? VIN?”

“Y’vvwong.

M’zoww

Zovv yu Vin Loz s u u vi n Me

at

a

a

a

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and also sorry. I do love txt and I respect them very much. If you want to see more of me I have a twitter [ @aeo0ng ](https://twitter.com/aeo0ng/) ok ok ok. Micheal Fassbender Voice I Love You All!!!! Maybe. I don't actually know you. But I am sure you are cool. Watch Saw 2004 director James Wan writer Leigh Whannell and watch Spiral when it comes out in may 2021. If you want. Only if you want.


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